Thorny

I’ve gotten a thumbs down or an eye roll on nearly every critical post I’ve made of this team in this thread. In most threads of late. Hank follows me around doing it. NS does it. Others too. Times have changed. The ones that are ok with never being good have had it: I suppose they have a point - it’s not getting any better and if you aren’t good with the team as is, why bother being around? The reactions don’t bother me but honestly I keep coming back to the same thing: I like the fans. If the fans would be happier around here just burying their faces in the sand I will honestly try to post less. I’m starting to feel kind of bad for telling the truth there really is more than one way to be a fan. The loveable losers thing can work. It’s not for me when it comes to the sabres but I do get it somewhat of a paradise lost situation. Better to reign in hell. I get it

It’s the general erosion of a willingness to have any sort of expectations over the course of a long 13 years. I agree it’s frustrating because it’s misplaced- it is on the franchise to provide a product worthy of the consumer. But it is understandable because we’ve been historically abnormally bad for so long. People will pay for the MCU until they don’t: but even that beloved franchise has seen their returns start to significantly diminish because of the perceived quality of the product. There will always be those that will simply take the CONTENT any way they can get, with a full smile. They are the ones that dive into every release day one. I don’t know if this sort of loyalty is comparable to loyalty to a hockey team - but both maybe might kinda sorta stem from the thinking that, if you keep your expectations low enough, you’ll forever be satisfied. You don’t have to deal with the crushing weight of disappointment if you aren’t expecting anything.

Can’t just sit around and draft and develop while twiddling your thumbs: other teams get a free 7 draft picks, every year, too. can look to make tiny relative gains year over year on that front, which is a challenge in itself, and even if you do, it’s compared against the chasm we are already behind. A manager has to actually do other things, construct a team, not essentially run a real-life version of online GM simulator video game mode.

Jets have fallen to 7th overall, after losing 4 straight. As mentioned, they are a good team. As I also mentioned, their ridiculously easy extended stretch of schedule was somewhat misleading

“And maybe even younger next year”

Far too small a sample size to know for sure

These guys aren’t the “Buffalo Sabres.” We are the Buffalo Sabres. These are just guys that have been paid to be here for 3-10 years. - - - Truly ”liking” OR “disliking” these guys is honestly sort of absurd, same as online celebrity worship: we don’t know them. They don’t know us. We are faceless to them. We have no idea who any of these people actually are. The Sabres are an *entertainment product*. I like them or dislike them SOLELY RELATIVE to how they perform by way of this context. *it is not a familial relationship*. It’s separation of art from author. “It makes me sad when people get down on these guys”. Is really quite naive, im sorry: it should be said. They are handsomely paid professionals: they don’t care about you. our shared kinship is with the fans. The kinship is with the *fans*. I empathize with the fans. I like the fans i get to know. I hate this team (not the humans behind the jerseys (we don’t know them)) cause they lose significantly more than they win and have for 13 years to the tune of specifically providing less value than every other single team. Which is their purpose: because it’s an entertainment product the nhl is a product

I could be wrong, but I think at least part of the discussion is today’s result - as far as it pertains to predictiveness going forward -. What I’m taking is merely a stance against moral victories. They way we lost doesn’t matter. It’s not reflective because it’s not unusual for bad teams to play like this on the level of occasion we do If none of this is relevant to an active discussion, then I’m wrong

I think Adams should get one mulligan: I’d keep him for next season. Honestly it’s probably a better-faith experiment if the coach is swapped out, even tho I’m significantly less anti-Granato than some. They can be back as a tandem, but then Adams forfeits his second coaching hire that Brawndo mentions, obviously.

I’d be ecstatic if 15 league teams got disqualified for doping and we made it by default not kidding. Just make the damn playoffs already. It’s the essence of the cultural rot

It’s not they they didn’t play reasonably, it’s that this is their *best* case result generally, right now. I’ll say it again: in an 82 game season, bad teams win games. They have games where they play well. A lot of them in fact. This is just the Monty Hall problem. Game show host opens the one door that tricks you into thinking you are in a better position than you are mathematically You need to make a change just like Monty hall

Goalies don’t count as part of the roster, are you joking? If that was the case, we’d have seen upgrades at the position over the years. It’s not actually possible to do that, they are just randomly assigned at the beginning of every game. What saves they make also isn’t dependant of the shooting quality of your forwards. All shots are assuredly created equal. I mean, if you follow sports

What you are describing is a bad hockey team. Nothing special there, and par for the course. Sabres are just an anomaly cause they do it every year “They were not good.” Right, I forgot we got “rostered” tonight whoops I mean “goalied”

My thoughts on today’s game: With 48 points in 50 games, Sabres will need to play at a 120 point pace over remaining 32 games to get to 95 points and a likely playoff berth They’ll need to play at a 110 point pace or commit an inferior season to record than last season

Nope, just her and her social media gal. Unfortunately I can’t be there this time. Got rejected on account of being too un-fashionable

My amazing wife will be at New York fashion week

I think his bark probably still precedes his bite. There’s a lot of that Concept stuff still out there: as mentioned i think he’s a reasonable player but any GM worth his weight would continually be exploring avenues where we might find value to exploit. I could see someone overpaying. Or paying. If not, keep him

His impacts this year have been a sizeable net negative he’s been OK on D, but the amount of ground he gives up to everyone else in other facets more than offsets the value he’s bringing relative to other players. Think of it like this: maybe when he’s on the ice we give up 3 shots for every 4 that other teams do, but we *take* like 5 less shots than the other teams we are comparing to. So we get outplayed when he’s on the ice whereas not so with the other example

Muel earned his rep because of a small, irrelevant sample size last year that led to people calling him our team mvp. It was being argued last year that we’d sooner remove *any other player* from the lineup than Samuelsson. There absolutely needs to be pushback here after that. He’s a reasonable player that was extremely overhyped. The receipts are there, I just refuse to quote anyone. The blowback is relative putrid decision making process re: his contract. He’s been bad this year, but lots of players have. I still think he provides the type of value I’d like on my team: but not being in a position of, at all, needing to commit long term at the time we did, all we’ve done is take on a bunch of unnecessary risk. It’s not a comment on the player, it’s a comment on the GM

Those calling him soft I suppose represent an exception, but those arguing re: his contract…that clearly has nothing to do with blaming Samuelsson. And if Adams is down right now, yes, I’ll kick the guy while he’s down. He’s a handsomely paid professional general manager. Do better than generally awful

For my part, only way this doesn’t end in disappointment is a 120 point-pace run over the final 33 that ends in a playoff berth. And really, only the second part of that sentence matters. No more “moral victory” trophies left in the Achievements list.

As for the OP question…No not really. Playoffs are nearly impossible and this season’s worth was always measured in playoffs. Expectation wise, but also commitment wise I posted less here during the break tho so I’m excited for SS to be back more. SS is great. I’ll always enjoy being here, don’t have any concern about that aspect